Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 292 pages of information about Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive.

[Footnote 2: Besides the above instances of that
unholy, tyrannical, and church-robbing policy, which
has been exercised by the supreme civil powers in
these nations with reference to religion and the worship
of God, all of which existed when the presbytery first
published their testimony, there has, of late, a very
singular instance of the same kind occurred, in the
course of administration, which the presbytery cannot
forbear to take notice of, but must embrace the present
opportunity to declare their sense of, and testify
against; and especially, as it is one that carries
a more striking evidence than any of the former, of
our public national infidelity and licentiousness,
and of our being judicially infatuated in our national
counsels, and given up of heaven to proceed from evil
to worse, in the course of apostasy from the cause
and principles of the reformation. We particularly
mean the instance of a late bill or act, which has
been agreed upon by both houses of parliament, and
which also, June, 1774, was sanctioned with the royal
assent, entitled “An act for making more effectual
provision for the government of the province of Quebec
in North America.” By which act, not only
is French despotism, or arbitrary power, settled as
the form of civil government, but, which is still
worse, Popery, the Religion of Antichrist,
with all its idolatries and blasphemies, has such security
and establishment granted it, as to be taken immediately
under the legal protection of the supreme civil authority
of these nations in that vast and extensive region
of Canada, lately added to the British dominions
in North America—­a province so large and
fertile, that it is said to be capable of containing,
if fully peopled, not less than thirty millions of
souls. This infamous and injurious bill, before
it passed into a law, was publicly reprobated and
declaimed against by sundry members of both houses.
It has been petitioned and remonstrated against by
the most respectable civil body corporated in Britain,
or its dominions, the city of London; by all the provinces
of North America south of Quebec; and even by the
inhabitants of the city of Quebec itself. It has
been, in the most public manner, in open parliament,
declared to be “a most cruel, oppressive, and
odious measure—­a child of inordinate power,”
&c. All which are sufficient indications how
scandalous, offensive, and obnoxious this act was.
There was afterward, in the month of May, 1775, a
bill brought into the house of lords, in order to effectuate
the repeal of the foresaid disgraceful act, when,
in the course of public debate, it was represented
by those few members of the house who appeared in
the opposition, as “one of the most destructive,
most despotic, most nefarious acts that ever passed
the house of peers.” But all in vain—­the
repeal could not be effected.

And moreover, let it be further observed here, that
the bench of bishops in the house of peers, who assume
the anti-christian title of spiritual lords,
and pretend to claim a seat in parliament for the care
of religion, during the whole course of this contest,
instead of appearing for the Protestant interest,
have, to their lasting infamy, publicly distinguished
themselves in opposition to it, by—­“Standing
forth the avowed supporters of Popery.”

Act, Declaration, & Testimony for the Whole of our Covenanted Reformation, as Attained to, and Established in Britain and Ireland; Particularly Betwixt the Years 1638 and 1649, Inclusive from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.